Maybe having too much work is the the commonest complaint from people who are desperately trying to get everything done. And usually people blame their boss for giving them too much to do.

On the other hand self-employed people are often even busier. So who’s the boss there?

And it’s well known that recently retired people frequently claim to be busier than they were when they were working.

The message is that whether you are employed, self-employed or retired you have a lot more control over the amount of work you have to do than you think. Being overworked is as often as not a self-inflicted injury.

You know when you have too much work because you can’t keep on top of it. And since being on top of your work gives you a great deal of energy, not being on top of it drains yours energy so that you get even further behind. You are into a vicious circle of too much work and less energy to do the work.

However remember that work doesn’t just appear from nowhere.

Work comes from our commitments, that is to say our commitments to ourselves, to our families and friends, to our work, to our society. Every time we add a commitment we add more work and decrease our energy. Every time we subtract a commitment we reduce our work and increase our energy. We need to find the spot at which we have maximum energy, and that will be where our work is exactly at the point where we can stay on top of it and achieve the maximum possible.

I have often said that a commitment is as much about what we are not going to do as about what we are going to do. Over-commitment leads to reducing our ability to meet our commitments. We have failed with a commitment if we have not protected the time that needs to be spent on it. A commitment should always be along the lines of “I have committed myself to A, and as a result I am not going to do B, C and D.”

Article originally appeared on Get Everything Done (http://markforster.net/).